With pitchers and catchers reporting in just a few days (and our office leaving on Tuesday), the first of the many Dodgertown stories have begun and the L.A. Times and Daily News are filled today with memories from Vero Beach.

Hall of Famer Ross Newhan writes about Dodgertown in not one, but two articles, while columnist Bill Plaschke also weighed in.

Matt McHale, who covered the Dodgers for many years and spent tons of time in Vero, wrote his  "farewell to Dodgertown" story today, and between Newhan, Plaschke and McHale, there must be years and years of time living in that so-called sleepy town.

McHale’s colleague, Dennis McCarthy has spent the week at Vero Beach for the 51st fantasy camp. He suited up like one of the campers and filed several stories in addition to the daily blogging he did. In case you missed them, here they are:

Boys of Summer Polish Dodgertown Memories, Sunday Feb. 10

No Pain, No Gain at Dodgers camp, Thursday, Feb. 7

Bottom of the Ninth for Dodgers Camp, Tuesday, Feb. 5

Last Chance to Play with the Big Boys, Sunday, Feb. 3

I’m sure I’ll be saying this very often to people I see and meet over the next six weeks, but it bears saying at the start of Spring, too.

All of us at the Dodgers understand that there will be some people in Vero Beach and on the East Coast who are disappointed with our decision to leave Dodgertown and we can empathize with those feelings. However, we also know that we will be serving a larger majority of Dodger fans, especially families, by making this move.

The primary reason we are moving is to make it easier for families who are Dodgers fans to enjoy Spring Training.  Just think, it takes five hours to fly to Vero; it takes one hour to fly to Glendale.  It takes five days to drive to Vero; it takes about five hours to drive to Glendale.  It costs $442 per person to fly to Vero.  It costs $442 for a family of four to fly to Glendale. 

Plus, the state-of-the-art-facility in Glendale will help our team.  As Ned has pointed out in the past, the long drives from stadium to stadium in Florida mean that you spend more time driving and less time evaluating players. When the team was in Brooklyn, it made all the sense in the world to be training in Florida but the time has come to make this move for our fans.

Another thing that might surprise some is that fan reaction has been extremely strong as everyone is looking for a chance to say goodbye to the team. On the first day of ticket sales in Vero, there was an incredible turnout that exceeded our greatest expectations. We think that is a sign of the fact that many fans understand our reasoning behind the move and are taking this opportunity to show their appreciation for all that’s taken place over 60-plus years.

So with that, it’s time to pack the bags and head out to Florida on Tuesday. If anything of interest happens tomorrow, I’ll post again but otherwise, you might not see anything new until we arrive in Vero Tuesday night.

Super Tuesday was followed by a wonderful Wednesday and from the comments posted yesterday, it seems that those who came to the various stops on the caravan enjoyed themselves.

I really thought the Panda Inn event was a great way for fans to meet their favorite players in an up-close-and-personal setting and hope that we can do more events like this in the future.

Our offices are crazy busy this week preparing for Spring Training, as many of us leave on Tuesday for Vero Beach.

Hope to post again over the weekend…

The caravan has left Yankee Doodles and is on the way back to the stadium after a very successful first day. I hope that many of you got the chance to see the Dodgers up close and personal and that you’re getting fired up for the season.

Tomorrow morning, we’ll be sending off the equipment truck to Vero Beach from Dodger Stadium at 9:30 and you’re all invited to come on down and be a part of it. We won’t be able to have the players sign autographs or we’ll be late for the hospital, but hopefully the players, broadcasters and former Dodgers will get the chance to come over and take some pictures and chat with those of you who come on down.

Brad Penny and Matt Kemp switched places so Brad will be with the Caravan tomorrow.

More details about the other public stops are below at a previous post, but there’s a number to call for reservations at the lunch stop and CityWalk should be hopping like in years past.

Also, on your commute, tune into KABC 790 at 8:40 for an interview with Joe Torre. Joe will also be on with Dan Patrick at 8:20 on KLAC AM 570.

Hope to see you all out there tomorrow.

We just received the very sad news that the Dodgers have lost a good friend in Bill Shelley.

Tot Holmes did a very classy job of summing up Bill’s love for the team at LAdugout.com. We will certainly miss seeing Bill at Dodgertown this Spring and our thoughts are with his family this evening.

Cancer took Bill’s life after being a dedicated Dodger fan for many years, which makes another loss this week that much tougher to take. Jeff Hann was a patient at Mattel Children’s Hospital and two years ago, I received an inquiry about having him come out possibly get a pitching lesson with a Dodger. Jeff was on his high school’s baseball team, but cancer kept him off the team and Derek Lowe granted the wish and took Jeff down to the bullpen for a side session.

Much to our surprise, while we were down there, Greg Maddux happened to walk up and Jeff couldn’t believe his good fortune. He didn’t seem awestruck – he just listened to their tips and did his best to throw the pitches they were teaching him. He had a very good arm and though he was tall and lanky, you could tell he was a solid pitcher.

After a long, courageous battle with cancer, Jeff passed away on Friday and according to our contact at Mattel’s, he talked about that day at Dodger Stadium all the time. 

Derek’s encounters with Jeff and Courtney, another young patient who lost her battle with this horrible disease, drove him to start D-Lowe’s Heroes, a program last year in which he invited patients out to Dodger Stadium and spent time with them on the field before the game while also providing them with dinner in the Dugout Club and great seats to the game.

It seems fitting that, for the start of the Caravan tomorrow and Wednesday, we will be at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and City of Hope, the Dodgers’ partners in ThinkCure. Frank and Jamie McCourt, as well as all of us at the Dodger organization, are committed to finding a cure for this deadly disease.

Our deepest sympathies are with the families of Bill and Jeff. I hope that you’ll take a moment to look into donating to ThinkCure and support the great work that these two hospitals do every day of the year. 

We have signed Rudy Seanez to a one-year contract (big league deal) for 2008.

Don’t forget about the various public stops of the caravan, which were all listed two posts ago.

Quite a finish for the football season…marking the beginning of baseball season, as far as I’m concerned. I know we all debate the Hot Stove League throughout the winter, but now that the Superbowl is over, everyone’s attention can officially shift to Spring Training.

For those of you looking for caravan information, keep scrolling down.

As for the difficulty in getting Coliseum tickets, I certainly understand the frustration of those who couldn’t get tickets and I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to find a way to get all of you to the game. There was certainly no intention to price our fans out of the game, as suggested. Season ticket holders have always received the best benefits, which is the same way it works for almost all sports teams in America. We knew that this game had extremely high demand and with 3.8 million tickets sold in 2007, it would be tough to accomodate everyone who wants to attend that game. I do know that all the fans who came down to Dodger Stadium were able to purchase tickets, but I know that doesn’t make it any better for those who couldn’t do so. Please stay tuned for more information in the event that we are somehow able to release more tickets.

Many of you have asked about the caravan and the public stops this year, so here’s the deal. First, you can read the entire release to see exactly where we’re going this year and what time the stops are, etc. However, keep in mind that many stops on the release are not open to the public (schools, hospitals, etc.)

As for the public stops, there are four this year but only two are for autographs. The third is just a really cool thing we’re adding this year.

Next Tuesday, there’s a public stop at Yankee Doodles at Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. We’ll be there at 5:30 pm and the guys scheduled to be with the group are Jeff Kent, Russell Martin, Brad Penny, Takashi Saito, Fernando Valenzuela and many others. This is an autograph stop.

On Wednesday morning, we’ll be sending off the Dodger equipment truck to Vero Beach in style. This really signifies the start of Spring Training, as all of our bats, balls, uniforms, etc. starts to make its way to Dodgertown a week ahead of all of us. The stop is open to the public and the players will be there, too, but this won’t be an autograph stop. Still, for those of you who can come in a little late to work, this will take place at 9:30 a.m. at Dodger Stadium by the players’ parking lot, so stop on by to help say "goodybe" to our stuff and "hello" to baseball season.

Wednesday afternoon, we’ll have a big pep rally at Universal CityWalk at 4 p.m. and this is also an autograph stop. Among those expected to be there are Andre Ethier, James Loney, Matt Kemp, Hiroki Kuroda and Nomar Garciaparra.

And finally, there’s another cool opportunity for those of you who can sneak out during the middle of the day. Our players and legends will be serving as the waiters at the Panda Inn in Pasadena (3488 E. Foothill Blvd) from 1:15 – 2:15. So, if you’ve ever wanted Andre or Matt or Nomar to take your order of orange chicken and beef and broccoli, this is your chance. You’ll need to call to make reservations at 626.793.7300. This is not an autograph stop, either, so please don’t show up with tons of things for the guys to sign. They’ll be busy working to get you your food in a timely manner.

We hope to see everyone there and that you’re all getting fired up about the season.

Today would have been Jackie Robinson’s 89th birthday and starting this year, we will be making January 31st an annual Dodger holiday to celebrate his legacy and teach young students of Los Angeles about his contributions to society. I think we’re very lucky to still have some of his former teammates and friends and family members with us today who can speak about him first-hand so be on the lookout for some great coverage of this in the coming day or so.

Also along the lines of making a contribution to society, we announced a new President yesterday for ThinkCure, our official charity. Janet Clayton will be working to establish this great cause throughout the city of Los Angeles and I think you’ll continue to hear more and more about it over time. Of course, for any of you going to the Coliseum game on March 29, you’ll see a presence of ThinkCure like never before, as proceeds from that game will benefit the charity.

Speaking of the Coliseum, tickets for that game go on sale this Saturday at 10 a.m. PT on dodgers.com. Three hours earlier, individual game tickets for Vero Beach Spring Training games will be on sale, so be sure to jump on these opportunities before they sell out.

As for baseball news, most of you have probably read that we re-signed Ramon Martinez to a minor league contract with a non-roster invitation. Also, I personally want to wish D.J. Houlton well with his new team in Japan.  This is a great opportunity for him and given that he would have had a tough time making this year’s team out of Spring Training, I’d love to see him dominate out there and come back to the big leagues a year from now. He’s a really, really good guy (recently married) who deserves nothing but the best.

And finally, two more non-roster invites are on board and both are from our minor league system. A.J. Ellis will be back in big league camp this spring, as will fellow catcher Gabriel Gutierrez.

For those of you in Los Angeles, hope you stayed dry with all the rain that has been coming down. Fortunately, it stayed away on Saturday, allowing us to host our Select-a-Seat Weekend for Season Ticket holders and permitting Nomar and Mia to host their Celebrity Soccer Challenge at Home Depot Center.

I was at the soccer match and thought it was a really touching event. At halftime, they introduced three bone marrow transplant recipients to their donors for the first time and it was a really emotional moment. If you couldn’t make it and get registered to be a donor, you can visit this website to see how easy it is. As simple as a q-tip swab to the inside of your cheek and you  might able to save a life.

At the event, I ran into Mike Lieberthal (he was actually playing) and he "announced" his retirement to the media that was there. (Diamond Leung of the Press Enterprise broke the news, as he was blogging live from the seats!)

Mike said he’s known for quite some time that he wasn’t going to come back but wasn’t sure what protocal was so he just figured he’d wait until he saw our beat writers, which was Saturday. Though he didn’t play much last year, Mike was a classy guy and I’m glad he got to play for his hometown team before he hung them up. Same goes for Randy Wolf, who didn’t hang ’em up but was also at the game. You never know if he’ll get another chance to play for the Dodgers and it was a pleasure working with both of them.

If you missed the game, check out the photo gallery on the front of the site. Ned Colletti and Kim Ng both played and I’m hoping Ned is still able to move today, as he was throwing himself around the field like a 20-something-year-old.

Later Saturday night, I had the honor to go to the 58th Annual Golden Mike awards, which are given out by the Radio, TV News Association for broadcasting exellence. We went last year when Vin Scully received the Lifetime Achievement Award and this year it was Jaime Jarrin who was honored in that manner, as he enters his 50th season with the club.  It’s hard to even fathom, as he said in his speech, that someone could come to America with no money and without knowing a word of English and keep the same job for 50 years, eventually ending up in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Jaime is one of my mentors simply for the class he exhibits in everyday life and I couldn’t be happier for him and his family, who were all in attendance.

And finally, for those who missed the news over the weekend, Rafael Furcal’s eighth-inning, tie-breaking, game-winning homer gave the Aguilas a 2-1 victory for the Dominican League title. Furcal hit .361 with a .395 OBP during the regular season and then led all Dominican players during the round-robin tournament in RBI (15) and stolen bases (7). He was tied for the lead with three triples and second in the league with 27 hits. During the playoffs, he got on base at a .398 clip and posted a .440 slugging percentage.

Judging from those numbers, I’d say he’s back in playing shape and ready for position players to report in less than a month!

Today we signed two more non-roster invitees to Spring Training and you will recognize both names. Mike Myers and the former Dodger, Tom Martin will both be coming to Spring Training. For Martin, this is his second time in camp as a non-roster guy and I still remember the first time he showed up at Dodgertown in the Spring of 2003. He was sitting at a table in the clubhouse and none of us had any idea who he was or what he was doing there. I was about to go over and ask him for his media credential when our clubhouse manager told me that he was a friend of Paul Shuey’s and he had just tried out for the team and made it. A hard-throwing lefty, he was going to be with us throughout camp.

By the end of the year, Martin had appeared in 80 games, the most ever by a Dodger left-hander and a record that stood until Joe Beimel broke it last season. He had a 3.53 ERA and has stayed in the bigs for the last three years, which is pretty cool.

On a different note, I caught up yesterday with a former colleague of mine from my days at MLB.com. Doug Miller, who used to cover the Angels in 2002 when I covered the Giants, has moved over to MLB.com/entertainment, which ties baseball and the entertainment world together. There’s some very interesting stuff there, including a blog that Doug is doing on MLBlogs, so check it out if you’re surfing the Internet and looking to keep yourself "entertained."

And finally, for those of you who didn’t get to see a piece of Tommy’s magic at the Kings game last night, be sure to read about it. You really have to see it to believe it sometimes.